The List: 12 Jan 1990 (Issue 112)

for Gibson as Vietnam Vet turned cop. looking like a cross between Aled Jones and Rambo. With Eric Clapton pounding away on the soundtrack. Lethal Weapon 2 dredges up every action movie cliche the director and seriptwriters can think of. All escapist ﬂuff of course. but nevertheless a disappointing follow-up to the original. Strathclyde: UCI East Kilbride. I Lite 0t Brian (15) (Terry Jones. UK. 1979) Graham Chapman. Terry Jones. John Cleese, Michael Palin. Eric Idle. 93 mins. The Gospel According to Monty Python offended a whole host of religious dominations upon its initial release. which rather obscured the fact that behind the controversy lay their most sustained humour to date. A host of very funny setpieces and smart cameos from all the team climaxes in a rather fetching musical crucifixion. Edinburgh University Film Society. I Life Is A Long Ouiet River (15) (Etienne Chatiliez. France. 1988) Benoit Maginel. Patrick Gelin. Andre Wilms. 99 mins. Embittered nurse exchanges the offspring of two very different families. Trouble results when she reveals her trick twelve years later. and the richer Le Quesnoys learn they are nurturing one of the sleazy Groseilles and vice versa. Based on the Mark Twain novel Pudd’nhead Wilson, its humour relies on characterisation rather than on the slick sight gags a Hollywood ﬁlm-maker would wring from it. Maginel and Wilms are outstanding. Central: MacRobert Arts Centre. I Lola (15) (Jacques Demy. France. 1960) Anouk Aimee. Marc Michel. Jacques Harden. 91 mins. Welcome reissue of Demy‘s marvellous first feature. Aimee stars as a cabaret singer and single mother awaitingthe return of her long-absent lover and attracting a horde ofsuitors in the meantime. This tale ofwistful melancholy is turned to a thing ofjoy by the sheer lyricism and brio ofthe ﬁlm-making. Dcmy‘s circling camera isa tribute to the great Max Ophuls in particular and evidence of the French New Wave's love of cinema in general. Recommended. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I Love Me Or Leave Me ( 18) 98mins. Package of four short films— two Australian. one New Zealand and one British — chieﬂy about male romances. Yet another event from the Fourth London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Glasgow: GFT. I Manon Des Sources (PG) (Claude Berri. France/Italy. 1986) Yves Montand. Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Beart. 114 mins. Ten years after the demise ofJean de Florette. the Soubeyrans run a prosperous carnation farm. Jean's daughter has grown into an alluring young woman and sets out to wreak her revenge. Steering this epic rural saga towards the realms ofGreek tragedy. this is a full and satisfying second half that explores the suffering of the guilty as they pay a crippling penance for man‘s greed and envy. The production values are as high as ever and Auteuil assumes Depardicu‘s mantle in his development from glaikit idiot to broken-hearted suitor. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. I The Man With Two Brains ( 15) (Carl Reiner. US. 1983) Steve Martin. Kathleen Turner. David Warner. 93 mins. Zany Martin-Reiner romp in which the great man plays a brilliant brain surgeon driven to the depths of despair when he weds Turner. a man-hungry murderess with a penchant for driving elderly husbands to early graves and pocketing their legacies. Deliriously delightful. Strathclyde: UCI East Kilbride. I Marnie (18) (Alfred Hitchcock. US. 1964) Tippi Hedren. Sean Connery. Diane Baker. 120 mins.}ledren (in a role intended for Grace Kelly) is the glacial blonde heroine in this most ﬂorid of Hitchcock‘s psychological melodramas. After her boss Connery catches her robbing his safe. he becomes attracted to

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a. .1: .~ was: ‘3‘

Parenthood (15) e (Ron Howard, US, 1989) Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Diane Wiest, Jason Hobards, Tom Hulce, Rick Moranis. 124 mins. Ron Howard must now be firmly estblished as Hollywood’s Mr Nice Film, following the amphibian charm of Splash and the likeable OAP extraterrestrial saga Cocoon with Willow's adventuresome little people and now this, a deft though eventually tiring exercise in the blend of humour and tears that is sentimentality American-style. Parenthood, as you might imagine, is based around the gentle art of child-rearing, and amidst a stellar cast has Steve Martin as an anxious pop trying not to be the lousy dad (Jason Hobards) he had, with Diane Wiest a single mom fretting over her teenage daughter’s sexual activity, and professorial Rick Moranis trying to educate his infant daughter by feeding her quantum physics and Kafka over the breakfast table.

‘After directing films which were very theatrical in theme like Splash and Willow, I wanted to do something that was more organic, something that I could feel.’ And true enough, growing out of the father of iour’s own experiences, Parenthood was developed from a screenplay by frequent Howard collaborators Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. ‘So much of it is in the writing to begin with,’ explains the modest 36 year-old Howard, ‘and when people are well cast then hopelully they should all fit in. I'm very meticulous about it but I have good success. It has less to do with my direction and more to do with

PARENTHOOD

the fact that everybody fits very well. I kept expecting with a whole bunch of really important actors that somebody was going to flip out or be painful to deal with, but everybody just seemed to enioy it.’

Formerly a well-known juvenile actor who spent several seasons as the Fonz‘s accomplice on Happy Days, the only sign of the passing years is a notable absence of hair on the Howard pate, otherwise he has the practised chirplness of an industry vet. He's right though when he points to the writing and casting as the crucial components of his film, which to these eyes tends to look like a television pilot with a few bad words chucked in. Howard himself might regard Parenthood as ‘a gradual, long slow dissolve into something a little more personal, maybe a little more serious too’, but ‘personal’ and ‘serious' in practice turn out to mean glib moralising writ in huge capital letters. Bergman, it ain’t. Our Steve on a rollercoaster provides an utterly signposted central metaphor of numbing banality, while the climactic montage where every member of the cast is either giving birth to or cuddling some cute wee baby in glutinous slow-motion had this old bastard reaching for his Sten gun. (Trevor Johnston)

her and the two marry. but her frigidity in the bedroom hides a much darker secret. The usual late Hitch mixture of carelessness (those backdrops!) and technical virtuosity. and probably a playground for veteran Freudians. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.

I Mississippi Burning (18) (Alan Parker. US. 1988) Willem Dafoe. Gene Hackman. Frances McDormand. Brad Dourif. 127 mins. This study of racial hatred in the deep South of America stirred up a hornet‘s nest ofcontroversy. but gained six nominations and an Oscar. Despite its commercial context it remains a powerful thriller full ofgood intentions. and few mainstream directors would dare even to try and bring such a ﬂammable subject to the screen. Glasgow: GET.

I My Grandmother ( PG) ( Kote Mikkaberidze. USSR. 1929) Silent Georgian film rediscovered in 1976. which fuses a number of innovative techniques including puppetry. animation. speedcd up film and earthy songs into a plot that brings together a living male nude statue and a killer fountain pen. Just how all this went down in 1920s Georgia is anybody‘s

guess. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.

I My Left Foot ( 15) (Jim Sheridan, Eire/UK, 1989) Daniel Day Lewis, Ray McAnally, Brenda Fricker. 90 mins. The life story of paralysed painter and writer Christy Brown. lovingly adapted from his autobiography of the same name. Sheridan and screenplay writer Shane Connaughton have portrayed Brown warts and all to create a funny,touching and thoroughly absorbing movie with four quite excellent central performances, and a celebration of a remarkable person. Central: MacRobert Arts Centre.

I Mystery Train (15) (Jim Jarmusch, US, 1989) Masatoshi Nagase. Nicolette Braschi, Screamin‘ Jay Hawkins, Joe Strummer. 113 mins. Jarmusch‘s first colour feature. like his earlier films, draws heavily on a beat-inspired road-movie genre. Three seperate groups of ill assorted people drift through Memphis, in a trio of interlocking vignettes that examined their various experiences in the city that boasts of the blues and Graceland. Glasgow: GFI'.

I Mystic Pine (15) (Daniel Petri, US, 1988) Annabeth Gish. Julia Roberts, Vincent Philiop D‘Onosrio. 104 mins. A rather slight romance set in the Connecticut resort of Mystic where three waitresses in the eponymous pizza parlour dream and drool over their customers. Over the course of one Fall their romantic troubles and dreams take them away from their teenage years and into boring adulthood. A Mills and Boon reminder of those days by the sea with a cloying tendency to present romance as the only escape from a dead end town. Glasgow:

I Out 0t Our Time (18) (Casi Pacillo& L.M. Keys, US, 1988) 70 mins. Intriguing debut feature following two distinct threads of women’s history, which links the efforts of a prominent 19305 fashion writer to get her novel published with the insecurities of a 19805 heroine, who works on a small feminist newspaper but is anxious to bring her poetry to a wider audience. Glasgow: GFI‘.

I Peking Opera Blues (15) (Tsui Hark, Hong Kong. 1986) 104 mins. Hark‘s outrageous costume swashbuckler is a real treat. Set in 1913 Peking. it followsthe adventures of three roistering heroines. one of whom dresses in men‘s clothing and plays the sort of role usually associated with Errol Flynn. Glasgow: GFT.